Monday, April 17, 2017

Autocracy now!

So Turkey, the country not the bird, recently held a referendum to decide whether they should continue to be a parliamentary democracy or abolish the office of Prime Minister and hand most of the power over to President and disappointing hologram Recep Tyyip Erdogan. Conservative, rural voters went in for the one-man rule option while urbanites voted overwhelmingly to not begin a rapid spiral into tyranny.

"If you can't trust a dangerous autocrat, who can you trust?"

-President (probably for life) Erdogan

Above: Erdogan assists a young Turkish
boy casting his 'yes' vote, shortly before
returning his parents to him safe and sound.

So Erdogan's side announced they'd won without bothering to wait for the results and now the opposition is calling into question the fishiness of the whole thing, the last minute rule changes and the pervasive whiff of naked power grab by a human-rights abusing strongman. After declaring victory Erdogan said of his opponents:

"There are those belittling the result. They shouldn't try, it will be in vain."

-Erdogan giving his 'Resistance is Futile' address

Hey, uh, no offense, I mean
I do enjoy not starving to death.

Sound menacing and a little familiar? Like say, something a whiney, petulant real-estate developer who may, or may not be able to read would say when he was feeling sensitive about how the majority of us didn't vote for him and weren't like, super-jazzed that he got to be the president anyway because of some 18th century voting scheme designed to help sparsely populated agricultural states feel appreciated?

Because he did kind of bring this up again when protesters marched on Saturday demanding he show us his tax returns like every President has done since the 70's. Even Nixon released his tax returns, and he once tried to cancel the election so he could be President forever.

Yes, somebody should totally look into a lot of things...

See? Moustache. Any parallels are
specious at best. Specious!

Ok, so obviously Donald Trump is not Recep Tyyip Erdogan. That would be a ridiculous over-simplification that glosses over the nuances of cultural differences and global political circumstances and besides, Erdogan has a mustache. But there are some unsettling parallels between the two. They're both into military strength, they've both been criticized for trying to deceive and intimidate the media, and they both apparently get like, super angry if you dare question the legitimacy of their shady doings.

Which, shouldn't that be a red flag? Like, I'm not like a mentalist or anything-wait, is that a real job? What I mean is that I'm not an expert at reading into people's actions and body language, but it seems like constantly attacking the people you politically defeated and then flying off the handle when anyone questions election results or say, asks you to release your tax returns kind of makes you look guilty. You know, of crimes?

I don't want to tell someone how to throw off suspicion, but people without terrible
secrets typically don't steeple their fingers and shift their gaze back and forth so much.